


Ghosts That We Knew

by warmommy



Category: Inglourious Basterds (2009)
Genre: Alternate Universe - World War II, Canon-Typical Violence, Espionage, F/M, Gen, M/M, World War II
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-19
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-16 22:25:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13063419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/warmommy/pseuds/warmommy
Summary: Donny Donowitz becomes involved with a woman whose real name and real life he does not know. He can't know, due to the nature of her position and the job she was sent to France for, in the first place. How does love exist or thrive when nothing you say can be the truth?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! You can find this and a lot more at my tumblr, warmommy.tumblr.com!

 

The most disconcerting thing was that, no matter which female name was used, she would look up. It felt bizarre and vaguely macabre, like talking to a ghost. Eventually, in that way that she had, she said “pick one”, her voice steady, calm, and enough to send Sakowitz shaking.

It was Donny who spoke up. “You been with us for six weeks and we still ain’t allowed to know your NAME?”

“What the fuck did I tell you?” Aldo asked, impatience in his voice and the corners of his lips. Fair enough. Lieutenant Raine briefed them the morning before they met her that they would be picking up an agent of a government body and don’t fucking bother her. Still, Donny knew the guys. Not being trusted with something so simple as a name inspired no trust in her.

“Pick one,” she repeated, just as soft and low as before, but carrying the same deep-in-his-gut thrum as the tiger’s roar he’d heard at the zoo that once.

“Pfft, fine.” Donny looked at her, a Fed if he ever saw one, blank as a fucking wall. “Your name is Jackie.”

“Did everyone hear that?” she asked.

“Yes, Jackie.”

No one ever called her ma'am, and she’d never seemed to care. No one had a clue how else to address her. Lieutenant had forbidden them under pain of a boot straight up the ass from asking her any questions that were not strictly related to the mission at hand.

So far all his expectations had been thwarted, too. After the briefing, Donny had expected to be met with some beefed up broad with a badass complex. Rather, she was narrow and slender and average height. Then he suspected she’d trounce all over the goddamn place expecting to be treated like Cleopatra, but she did everything for herself, on her own, dull as fucking dishwater.

So, of course, there was a lot of money riding on this woman. There was a pool for her real name, for which agency she worked for, and how long it would take for Hirschberg to make a complete dick of himself propositioning her (but that one was well-hidden from the guy). Naturally, some of the curiosity bled away over the weeks that turned into months because eventually even the strange and uncomfortable can become normal, and also because she never did anything. Nothing of note. She spoke privately with Lieutenant, though there was no doubt that was strictly of a professional nature, and never talked to any of them without purpose.

Very, very slowly, a bit of good-natured ribbing got peppered in with her necessary statements. She picked on Ulmer the most, but the guy loved it and soon considered himself her actual friend with special knowledge of who she was.

Every two weeks, Jackie made herself available to listen to any complaints or ailments any of them had, and the frequency with which Wicki kept getting the clap was what finally broke her. No one even knew what was happening until it was already happening, and, as she hit this man who was twice her size with a white cotton towel, Donny looked to Utivich, then to Lieutenant, then to Stiglitz, each of them with his own anxious, open mouth grin.

“There’s not enough penicillin in the whole goddamn continent of Europe for you!” Jackie yelled, hitting him nonstop with that towel while the sweet Austrian sunk his shoulders and actually hung his head. “Do you think I want to keep hearing about your dick? I don’t! No one does! For fuck’s sake, just a LITTLE indiscretion would go a long way. You can’t just send your dick out into the world to fend for itself!”

“I didn’t mean to,” the big guy grumbled apologetically. “I’ll, uh, I’ll do better Miss Jackie. Can I get the shot?”

It was the funniest damn thing that had happened since a week or so before when s Nazi saw Kagan and just started shrieking. He didn’t live long enough for them to find out why, why Kagan. With entertainment more or less of their own making, watching the Great Gonorrhea Crisis of Wicki’s Dick unfold was pretty damn wicked.

A few more little incidents passed, but the strangest shit to Donny was that, every time, whoever it was that got on her bad side was eating out of her hand from then on. Well, that wasn’t the right way to put it. She never pretended to have authority over any of them, so it wasn’t that. Donny guessed that after laying into someone, Jackie felt comfortable enough to actually flap her gums and talk to ‘em.

“Is it…I mean is it…” Utivich was looking down at the gun he was supposed to be cleaning, and Donny waited for him to continue. “Is it okay to think she’s terrifying? Not that I don’t like her, I just, she’s just, I really don’t want her to yell at me.”

“Then don’t fuck up, huh? Don’t bug her. She don’t talk to people that leave her alone and let her work.” Donny went right back to gawking at her. It was a helluva sport he’d invented. It had started off because he wanted to see THE moment Stiglitz and Jackie fell in love and started ripping clothes off, because that had seemed pretty obvious at first.

Nah, it was all wrong. She paid him no more attention than anyone else, maybe less. Hell, maybe she was too stiff and scary for Stiglitz, even. Maybe Donny himself was the only one who wasn’t afraid of her, because he most certainly was not.

Aside from providing basic healthcare, which she seemed to genuinely hate, Donny could observe two other functions of hers in the group: explosives and interrogation.

That first one was just sexy, Donny didn’t even try to shame himself for getting rock hard when Jackie blasted walls and other shit. It was all he could do to wait until he could get alone after the first time. Not that he was a pervert, it was just, well, power and destruction that he wanted. It was sexy that she even knew how to do it.

That, however, felt to Donny like the whole playing doctor thing did, like it was something she COULD do, so did when the situation was appropriate. But it wasn’t her purpose.

He didn’t know much about the interrogation bit. They’d been going after some strategically chosen mid-ranking bloated Nazi fuck officials, and it always went the same way. They’d bring the guy back to the rendezvous point and leave him with Jackie. She would take the prisoner in a separate car, be gone for hours or a day or so. It was never, ever to be spoken of, according to Lieutenant, with more threats of ass boots.

Jackie would return to them at a previously planned location and mentioned nothing at all. She always looked like she was scrubbed clean, but Donny saw blood dried under her fingernails sometimes. Sometimes he saw fresh blood spatter on her boots.

So, Donny was pretty damn sure interrogation meant torture, but he didn’t lend much thought to that. It was annoying that she was getting targets his bat should be smashing, but he didn’t want to feel annoyed with Jackie. Fortunately, he was always pretty good at compartmentalizing.

It was just dark enough now that it was difficult to see, even with the Dakota hole fire. Everyone was retiring as they completed their assignments, hoping to get a full four to six hours of shut eye. Jackie would often rather read than sleep, and that was what she was doing, quiet and inconspicuous in a tiny bundle near the fire for its warmth and light.

Donny walked up, set his bat against her pack. He almost hesitated, but was unsure why. He just didn’t realize, not then, that he was saying the two most important words he’d ever say in his entire life. He had no idea of the gravity of four syllables, of her eyes, softened and bearing a soul. Donny Donowitz did not know he was changing his entire life.

He smiled and took a seat. In the bright reflections of the fire, her eyes were the color of light hitting a glass of good whiskey; unconsciously, he licked his lips. He folded his elbows in and stooped over his lap. “Heya, Jackie.”


	2. Chapter 2

"So, what's the deal with the German book?" Donny was lying with his arms folded behind his head, propped against his rucksack. He had one knee crossed over the other and was trying to avoid puddles from the leaking roof of the barn they were all sleeping in for a while. It was him, Lieutenant, and Jackie staying up in the loft, but, for now, he and Jackie were alone.

She turned away from her candles and held the front of the book up so he could see the title. " _Im Westen nichts Neues_. In English, it's called  _All Quiet on the Western Front_. Have you heard of it? It's quite a popular book."

* * *

 

"Yeah, but  _why_  though?" Intrigued and encouraged that she was in a talkative mood, Donny sat up and scooted closer. "You know German?"

"Yes. As for why, it's important to understand the German perspective on war, what the physical and mental hardships that they face. This was written by a German veteran of the Great War. Reading it in the language that it was written keeps it as close to the source as possible." She slipped a piece of yarn along the spine to mark her place and closed the book, then she blew out her candle.

"How come you gotta 'understand their perspective'? We're just killin' them."

"That's your job, and you do it well. My job is slightly different, therefore requiring its own set of skills. I'm terrible at swinging a baseball bat." Holy shit, that was a smile. It was a tiny one, but it was there, almost entirely swallowed by the darkness around them.

Brightened his whole goddamn day, which had been dreary and full of bullshit. "Well, damn, Jackie, I'll show you how to swing a bat."

"You can try, if you want. I'm horrifically uncoordinated. Shit, my matches got wet. . ."

"Oh, I got a lighter right here, c'mon." Donny pulled it out of his pocket and lit it in one fluid motion and she leaned down with her cigarette poised between her lips. "I think that fuckin' rain's finally stopped. I gotcha 'til those things dry out. So, you know what Wicki and Stiglitz are sayin' to each other?"

She actually sat down beside him, pretty close, relaxing with every exhale of thick smoke. "They don't talk to each other often. They don't have a personal relationship. I don't think that they can relate to each other well, one being a German Lutheran draftee and the other being an Austrian Jewish whore."

Donny leaned back and laughed, his hands crossing his belly. "Yeah, real sorry you keep havin' to be the one that hears about it. Everybody's got their own way of dealin' with shit, don't they?" He frowned, recognizing how, well, dumb he sounded, talking like that to this lady.

"I think I figured most of them out by now." She craned her neck as if to look at the gathering of men below, the random scattering of bodies, farts, and scratchy woolen blankets.

"Aw yeah? A' right then, Jack, you want to bet squares on all the dirty secrets? That's cigarettes, Jackie." He winked.

"I'm a decent agent. I'll take that bet."

"Okay, but I'm gonna lay out some point assignments. The Lieutenant's is easy, so's mine, so's Zim's, so those're all one square. You already got Wicki down."

She lit one cigarette off the old one. "I agree to your terms, Donowitz. Shall I begin with Raine?"

Donny patted a drumroll against his lap.

"Snuff,  _occasionally_  laced with cocaine."

" _What_?" Donny grinned like a wild man. "Nah! Really?"

Now it was Jackie that winked. "That's one. Your coping mechanism is baseball. Anything to do with baseball. When there's no one whose skull you need to cave in, you still practice batting, and when you're not doing that, you manage to work baseball into almost every conversation. As far as coping mechanisms go, you have one of the best, because you can engage in it almost always without it affecting your cognitive faculties or instincts as a soldier."

"Well, you just told me shit about myself I didn't even know." Donny pursed his lips and leaned his head toward hers. "Now Mike."

She breathed out heavily, hands coming together. "Zimmerman's is altruism. He deals with all of this by focusing on caring for his team members. He's the one that sees everyone as his family, truly his little war family."

Donny took three cigarettes out of his open pack and extended them to her, but smirked and pulled them away before she could take them. "Doin' damn good, Jackie. Next 're worth two. Hirschberg, Ulmer, and Kagan."

Jackie scoffed demonstratively and tucked her temple against his shoulder so she could keep her voice to a minimum. "With Baby Hirschberg, everything seems like a laugh, like it's all just a big joke. Everything he projects outwardly is a fabrication and the funny man is his armor. I will admit I don't know what Ulmer was up to before I was introduced to this assignment, but ever since then, he's funneled his attention toward me in this giant crush that I can't seem to squash. It's harmless, though, so I suppose it's all right. Kagan seems to just. . .completely abandon reality, as often as possible. He just lives in his own world. He's a nice enough guy, good soldier, but I'm most worried about him."

"Actually, I didn't even know that about Andy. I'll give it to you. You can't possibly get through all the last, though. Three squares for each right answer. Utivich, Sakowitz, and Stiglitz.  _No way_  do you know what the hell's up with Stiglitz, so I'll make that one five. No, a whole pack."

Now she gave a genuine grin, that dull as dishwater costume slipping right off. "Just go ahead and hand it over now."

"Oh, bull fuckin' shit."

"Hugo!" She shouted. It took Donny off guard, because he'd never heard her say any of their given names.

"Jackie!" the German returned, his tone downright jovial. That was new to him, too.

"Please climb up to the loft and answer a few of my questions so I can win a pack of cigarettes off Donowitz."

Sure enough, the ladder squeaked and creaked and Stiglitz crossed his arms at them. "Split it with me?"

"Fair enough. Now, Hugo, you had absolutely no problem murdering thirteen men so that they could no longer find, torture, and kill innocent Jewish persons?"

He nodded immediately. "Not a damn one."

"You felt  _no_  empathy for any single one of those men? Their families? Their friends?"

Stiglitz shook his head. "Never."

"You're obviously quite glib and charming." They laughed at some shared, private joke. "You're obviously capable of being quite impulsive and don't require a lot in the way of social interactions, even though you feel a general affinity for the Basterds as your team, your brothers in arms."

Stiglitz stood with his shoulders back and nodded again. "That's right, Jackie."

She elbowed Donny sharply. "My beloved Hugo is a textbook psychopath, he doesn't need a coping mechanism. This is the sort of environment that offers him constant stimulation and he only has to engage with people in ways that he specifically  _wants_  to. Pyschopathy isn't a bad thing, some are just bad people. Hugo is a rose."

Stiglitz touched his chest in a near-romantic gesture. "Half a pack."

"Later, remind me." Jackie waved him off. "Do we have patrol later? Okay, then."

Donny tossed a pack of cigarettes at her and let a couple of loose ones rain down over her. "Take 'em. You're the queen."

"Would you care to take a guess at mine? I'll give you all the ones but the six I owe Stiglitz." Jackie collected them all in a neat pyramid and set them on top of her book.

"Are you kiddin' me? I don't know if I'm technically even supposed to talk to you. I don't even know your name, remember?"

"Jackie's good enough. You picked out the one you thought fit me best. Think on it starting down that path and see if you arrive at the answer. I'll keep these in reserve until you're ready." Now that the game had come to a close, her arms grew more stiff and hugged around herself.

Unwilling to let the spirit of the moment go, Donny nudged her gently. "What sorta thing am I allowed to ask you?"

She shrugged, making even more of a mess out of her hair. "You can ask whatever you want, but I don't have to answer at all, and whatever answers I provide you with will probably be lies."

"Lieutenant  _forbade_  us. About a level two threat." Donny only  _just_  caught himself trying to put an arm around her shoulders. "Stiglitz ask a lot of questions?"

"Almost none, ever. And really, I know I put him in the spotlight, but don't go around saying shit about him being a psychopath. He's fine."

"Sure, sure. How come ya gotta lie to me?"

"Call it a function of my profession. Strategic reconnaissance and covert intelligence espionage."

Now Donny  _did_  actually slip his arm around her, but he wasn't thinking about it, it was the same way he would've done back in Boston when one of the girls he dated said something that wow'd him a little. "OSS?"

Jackie smiled a set smile and shrugged again. "What's that?"

He shuddered with laughter and realized as he did that he'd forgotten all about the godawful smell of the barn, the puddles of water all around them, and his discomfort in her reading German materials. In fact, he forgot a lot more than he should’ve, touching his lips to hers in the still dark.


	3. Chapter 3

" _Wo is der Geistermacher?_ " The boy had sandy blond hair and blue eyes like a good little Aryan kid. Well, kid was kind of a relative term. Couldn't have been older than eighteen. He was also crying, honest to God crying, like some of them did, especially the babies like this one, thinking about their mamas or whether they were gonna die without ever gettin' laid.

Stiglitz, standing some ten odd feet away, bandolier draped over his arm, started to laugh, staccato and cold. Sometimes that was creepy as all hell.

Donny used the bloody end of his bat to lift the young Wehrmacht soldier's trembling chin. "The fuck did you just say to me, you cock smoker?"

"He said where's the Ghost Maker," Wicki supplied from his place behind the kid, pointing his own Karabiner 98k right at that blond head.

Out of the corner of his eye, Donny could see Jackie take a deep breath and hold it. "Ghost Maker, huh? Well, I'm the fuckin' Bear Jew, that's Aldo the Apache right over there--'ey, chief--who's the Ghost Maker?"

Stepping over a few lazy corpses, Stiglitz came and knelt down beside the kid, that wicked grin overtaking his face. " _Hast du es schon gehört? Sie zieht die Vorhaut von Nazi-Hähnen ab, Stück für Stück, sie füttert Wildschweine mit deren Bällen. Sie hat über hundert junge Nazis verführt und ermordet, genau wie Sie selbst--_ "

"No, please!" The words were spat out like teeth. They were probably the only English words the kid knew. " _Ich werde dir alles sagen! Bitte! Der Bärenjude, der Geistermacher. . ._ "

"All right, he says he'll give it up as long as the Bear Jew and the Ghost Maker don't get ahold of him," Wicki said. He was looking at Stiglitz with a foul expression, but it did not seem to bother the German Basterd. He stayed right where he was, whispering horrors to the trembling Nazi beside him.

Donny tilted his head, smiling down at the kid, and smeared the blood of his commanding officer across his cheek. "Stiglitz, you can tell him the Bear Jew's gonna be hauntin' his dreams with the Ghost Maker for the rest of his life."

"Ah-right." Aldo crunched on a mouthful of apple. "Quit playin' with him and get him talkin' about them captured Resistance men, where they found 'em."

While Wicki was translating every stuttered, squeaked word, Donny watched as Stiglitz approached Jackie, still wearing that awful grin.

" _Der Geistermacher!_ " He nudged against her arm, like he was congratulating a new father for having a healthy baby boy.

She huffed, her arms crossed. "I see where a lot of the hype comes from now. I had no idea you knew I was circumcising Nazis and feeding their balls to wild pigs. How did the secret get out?"

Donny held his breath. Oh,  _baby_. "You're the fuckin' Ghost Maker?"

She shrugged now. "Dumb name. Not half so good as Bear Jew."

Lately, nothing got his dick up like Jackie Maslow. Donny took every possible opportunity to have his little chats with her, whether it be about her books or telling her about his parents and the barber shop or just whatever, and, at the end of almost all of them, he'd kiss her, a little longer each time. He was very, very careful that no one else saw, and that had several practical reasons. One, the lieutenant would kick him in the ass. Two, Donny did not want a single one of the other mooks thinkin' that  _they_  could just kiss Jackie. Three, he was terrified she would make him stop if someone else were to find out.

It still probably didn't escape  _everyone’s_  notice that he never fucked any girl that didn't resemble her anymore, but they didn't know, didn't need to know, that it was just slightly more than a total fantasy. It wasn't as good as the real thing, couldn't possibly be, but he was always scouting for girls with honey blonde hair and tawny eyes when he and the fellas went out whorin'. He was a lot smarter about using condoms than Wicki was, especially now since if he ever came up with the clap or something it would ruin an already really long shot with this woman, and, no matter what the Frenchies claimed their names were, they were always Jackie to him, and he'd say it over and over, under his breath, in their ears, grunted into their skin, moaned out in the stale air of whatever room they were in.

Donny wondered what she fucked like. Wondered about the best ways to please her so she'd wanna go again sometime.

God-fucking-dammit. That lousy little kraut was gone now and most his buddies were finishing the ceremonial throwing of the boots, but that other pain in his ass kraut was still standing by Jackie.

If she fucked Stiglitz, it would be a disaster. Donny would have no choice but to make mince meat out of the guy's face, and that wouldn't be easy. Look at that guy, face like a rock. If she fucked Stiglitz, it would kill him. God, he needed a drink.

Donny sat down beside his CO and started shaking Nazi goop off the end of his bat. "So what're we up to now? What'd that fuckhead say?"

"How in the hell come you didn't hear what Wicki said?" Aldo was frowning at him, his canteen in his hand, paused halfway to his mouth. "Damn it, Donny. I'm countin' on you having half a brain in your head, the one in your pants doesn't do me no good."

"I didn't want to fuck that German, lieutenant."

Aldo's eyes narrowed. "No fuckin' shit. Listen up, ain't nobody gonna tell you again. Them French fellas they strung up back up the road a piece was Resistance. Young Kurt was present when they found their hideout, said it was a chance kinda thing. They already radio'd their command, and there's more comin' than I'm willin' to risk, so we're gonna head on over to this little pissant town I done circled on the map, wait a few days, see what we find, see what we can hear, let you fellas run a little loose, come back here once the first two squads have already left and pick our way through 'em, bought five or six men at a time."

"Huh." Donny hunched over his knees, hands pressing together. "'Kay. When do we head out? We good to stay at camp for the night with patrols and watch rotation?"

"I was gonna ask your opinion on that. What you think? It'd be one thing if they wasn't showin' up all at once. Shit, why'm I even askin' you? Hey Ghost Maker, need some strategic recon intel." Aldo sat further back on the uneven boulder and took another look at the map while he waited. His voice pitched down. "That goddamn German, always fuckin' around where he don't belong. What the fuck was he sayin' to that boy? Always some fucked up shit."

Donny was used to the lieutenant talking to himself like that. It tickled him a bit, actually, hearing what he thought about the others. Well, except Jackie. Never a word on her.

"Lieutenant Raine?" She appeared before them, not at attention, but standing with good posture, hands behind her back.

"Aw, don't do that shit. Here, take a look, we got a conundrum." Donny snapped and gestured for her to sit by him, crooking his fingers toward his wrist. He knew Lieutenant was eyeballing him, but that ship had already sailed, he'd done it, he could get chewed out over it later. Donny didn't normally talk a lot when the two of them started talking shop, kept his words few and his opinions for when one of them asked for it. Or, when Lieutenant asked for it. Jackie spoke softly, quietly, ten dollar words, but she made it make sense.

Aldo whistled to call attention to the others and made the announcement they'd be hoofing it all night to Saint Lauren.

Back at camp, when they made it there, the guys began the break down. Donny had intended to go rile Jackie up about the Ghost Maker thing, if he could manage, but he stopped short when he saw her standing with Aldo, off by themselves. Lieutenant didn't really look all that different, jaw squared, bit of an underbite, full on hillbilly, but a strong guy. He was looking at the pink and orange in the sky now that the sun was setting, hands on his hips. Jackie, though, she touched Aldo's scar, traced her finger along it, and he just laughed a bit and put his hand on her shoulder.

First week in France, Hirschberg had  _asked_  about it and got thrown in a pond.

Donny tried to remember Rabbi Lewis telling him to breathe in and out, even and deep, to keep in control of himself.


	4. Chapter 4

Being set loose in Saint Lauren for a couple days offered up a good opportunity for the Basterds to trade in valuables stolen from dead Nazis and use the money gained on whores and liquor. That was a given. It was all anyone wanted to talk about on the march. It was all anyone wanted to talk about when they were finding rooms, spread out across several establishments in the town. Thing about it was, Jackie disappeared, and it was bad enough Donny didn't figure that out until past midnight. It was now past four and he was walking by himself around Saint Lauren because he couldn't fucking sleep and wanted to sober up enough to find his friend.

No one else had seen her, not even her cadre of buddies. He  _assumed_  Stiglitz didn't know where she was, the dickhead, because, when asked, he just grinned and laughed. He said something in German he wouldn't repeat and then said quite forcefully that Donny should leave. So he did. Fucking waste of time.

When he asked Lieutenant, he got pissy about it, so Donny was on his own. He got from that that he shouldn't be too worried. If Aldo wasn't swearing up a storm and organizing a search for their "very important asset", it meant he did know at least why she was gone, if not where she was and what she was doing. And really, why should he be so anxious about it anyway? He'd never seen her do it, but she killed enough of the Germans to earn herself a cryptic nickname. He knew her well enough, or knew enough about her, to know that she was competent, had a good head on her shoulders, hell, really fuckin' smart, and, well, she was a grown woman. She did not need Donny Donowitz out looking for her, not even in Nazi occupied France.

Donny Donowitz was out looking for her in Nazi occupied France.

He found Jackie climbing out of a cab in an alleyway five blocks from the inn she had chosen. It was by pure luck, but as the driver pulled out and drove away, she and Donny kept their eyes trained on each other. She looked exhausted and as though she were having an entire hypothetical conversation in her mind as she watched him.

"Will you stay with me?" she asked after many hesitant, tense moments. He'd never heard her sound that way before. Scared. Hurt. That crack in her voice tore his heart in pieces.

He was on her in two seconds. Donny pulled her in tight and kissed the top of her head. "Hey, hey, sweetheart, what happened? Babydoll, what's the matter?"

Jackie sniffled against his jacket and sighed heavily, haltingly. "Long, shitty night. Stay with me, Donny. I don't want to talk about it, but I don't want to be alone."

"Oh yeah, that's a given, sweetheart. Course I will. Let's go." Donny slipped the jacket over her shoulders and even held her hand as they walked, and she let him. "I guess you know I was lookin' for you. I got worried. You don't gotta tell me, or nothing. I just...wanted you to know."

True to her nature, Jackie didn't respond with words. She tightened her grip on his hand and didn't duck or try to pull apart from him when they entered the inn. She just dug the keyring they'd given her out of her pocket and unlocked the door at the end of the hall. The radiator was either switched off or busted, so the room was a little too cold, and when she turned on the light, Donny would see tear tracks on her cheeks, which made him all the more sad and angry.

"Uh, can you just. . ." He closed his eyes and scratched the back of his neck, trying everything he knew to stay calm. "Can you just tell me honest if somebody hurt you? I'm gonna lose my mind, Jack. Did somebody rough you up or mug you or, God help the poor fucker when I get to him, do something WORSE to you?"

"No." She sat down on the edge of the bed and looked up at him expectantly. "Nothing that you think possibly happened did happen. I'm sorry that I've upset you and I'm sorry, too, that you can't know anything. I've never apologised to you for that before, and I should have."

"Nuh-uh. You ain't gotta say you're sorry for doin' your job." He pulled a face he hoped would make her smile or laugh and sat a good foot away from her.

"Donny, do you know what kind of man gives up a good time and sleep to look for someone he knows probably doesn't need to be found?"

He shook his head. "It wasn't nothin', Jack. Don't worry."

She touched his hand where it rested on his knee. "A really good man. You're fantastic."

Donny smiled wide and leaned over to kiss her hair again. "Well, obviously."

It turned into a hug, which turned into an embrace. He didn't know if those two words had any real difference, but in his mind, they were separate things. He'd hug a friend, his mom, a nice girl he was dating, even one of these mooks he was shlepping around Nazi-littered France with. A hug was something good for the soul and linked two people for a short time to express connection in the physical plane.

An embrace was something he was doing right now, with Jackie Maslow (he'd made up the last name for her, too), and if he'd ever done it before, he didn't remember. They warmed each other's skin. It felt like inch by inch contact, and it felt really fucking good. He noticed, no shit, for the first time, how small and slender she seemed in comparison to him. Jackie always seemed larger than life, but this embrace lasted and lasted and she was all of a sudden just an ordinary woman.

"Sometimes there are things I really want to tell you," she said after a while, cosy where she was.

"When won't it matter anymore?" His voice belied the curiosity that surrounded that question. He had pondered it and pondered it for so long. "I mean, for instance, say we get back to America after the war, would you ever look me up and tell me shit about yourself?"

"Oh, Donny." Her voice was heavy and thick again, so he tightened his arms around her and felt tears fall on his shirt. She wiped her eyes, one of her arms still tucked snug around his shoulder. "I think so, maybe."

It was a disheartening reply, but he nodded. "Okay."

"It's not within my purview to. . .to review events so far in the future."

Donny tried to let that sink in. "You don't ever think about the war ending?"

"No, I do, I just don't--no, fuck it, yes. This whole fucking thing, it's all supposed to happen this way. What I'm supposed to be doing is creating relationships with people I work with that I'm going to have to betray at some point. I don't even know how to explain what I'm saying to you right now."

"You can't even begin to imagine how impressed my Ma will be when she meets you. She loves spy novels and all that shit." Donny kissed her nose, then her cheek. "She'll be crazy about you."

Jackie chortled. "You'd introduce me to your mother?"

"Are you kiddin' me? She'd be  _so_  ticked if I came back from Europe with a wife and didn't introduce her. She'd slap me silly. Come on, Babydoll, now you're just talkin' nonsense." Oh wow, that had came out wrong. He'd meant to say it, but he'd meant to say it to lighten up the mood and make her feel better. He hadn't meant for it to sound so real, even to him. It was the kind of flirtatious thing he'd say to smooth shit over with girls back in the States all the time. He let it stand, though, in part because he was pissed at himself and also because what the hell could even fix this kind of a mess?

"That even  _sounds_  like a spy novel. A post-war spy novel. The All-American boy from Boston comes home with a woman whose name he doesn't even know, telling his mother all sorts of stories about her life that aren't even true."

"No, that just sounds godawful."

Jackie smiled and kissed him for the first time, seemingly happy to drop it and let the dumb shit that he'd said roll off her back, as usual. Donny was perfectly pleased with letting her do both.


	5. Chapter 5

That was a really fucking good night. Morning. Whatever. Sometime around sunrise, they'd stopped talking and burrowed underneath the sheets and quilts. He, Donny Donowitz, slept big spoon to little spoon with Jackie Maslow. He could've died and gone to heaven, it was so damn comfortable, and he slept like a fuckin' rock, too. Really, he should've figured that she'd be gone by the time he woke up, but that didn't stop it from hurting.

With one look around the room, he could see that all her things were gone, too, which told him that it didn't matter how long he looked or how far he went to do it, he was not going to find Jackie Maslow again. Bitter as cold coffee, Donny held himself up against the headboard and remembered how upset she'd been, and how hard he'd tried to make her smile. Reason told him that this was the reason she'd been so dismayed, knowing she was going to have to leave and that she couldn't even say goodbye to him, and he felt too shitty to be angry, for now.

There was nothing he could do about it. For the first time in his life, there was no way for him to approach the situation hands-on and figure it all out. He was never  _meant_  to figure Jackie out, though. He'd always been meant to stay at a distance so shit like this wouldn't happen. Well, shit like this had happened, and, for a while, sitting there in that bed he'd hours before shared with her, he wished he'd never said a word to that woman. He wished he'd never started that game of gawking at her or given her a name. That shit was all too late, though, far, far too fucking late.

Donny figured he should be angry, should feel betrayed, but all he felt was loss. Even when he got out of bed and saw the little slip of paper on the desk, even when he picked up the piece of stationery from the front desk with the pink lipstick kiss, the heaviness of loss made lead out of his shoulders, his knees. It was a kiss goodbye, Donny realised. How fuckin' dandy.

His arms felt empty, and that wasn't fucking fair. None of it was. He left that room and went straight to the nearest whorehouse and asked the lady in charge to wake up a blonde with hazel eyes. When she walked in, topless, sweet grin plastered on her face, Donny pulled her against him with absolutely no finesse or really even any concern for whether or not it was too rough. He kissed her so hard, he wasn't even sure you could call it that. He was angry at the poor girl for not being what he wanted, just like he'd been mad at the others before her, ever since he first saw Jackie blow up a wall, and he just  _wanted her so bad_ , but he was denied a simple goodbye, and even the courtesy of her name.

Donny didn't want to look at this girl, because she wasn't pretty like Jackie was. He flipped her on the bed and that was a little better, but still not good. That fucking woman was not the woman he was fucking, but the prostitute was moaning and whispering and pretty tight. She was also pretty goddamn observant, because she started to rock back against him and spoke in a breathy mix of French and English about how she loved him, how she never wanted him to go, how she needed him to stay. He fell for it, too, like a pathetic schmuck, and lightened up on her significantly.

"This okay, Babydoll?" He whispered in the shell of her ear. "That good?"

"Oh, oui, oui, je t'aime. . ."

"In English."

Probably she knew she was gonna get a hell of a tip, because she turned her head, looked right at him, and said, somewhat convincingly, "I  _love_  you."

* * *

 

He noticed, over the next couple weeks, that Stiglitz was keeping a pretty close eye on him, and the last thing Donny felt he needed was to be under the inspection of a bona fide psychopath Hans Bitterman. Every time he felt that creep's eyes on him, he got a little closer to getting into it with him. He almost did, once, when Stiglitz said something that Donny knew for a fact made reference to Jackie, but Wicki held his arms behind his back and Stiglitz walked off laughing.

"Get the fuck off me, you prick!" Donny shoved Wicki when he was free.

The Austrian held up his hands in a mock surrender, then motioned for Donny to follow him. "He's bored."

"What?"

"Hugo. He's bored and he can't stand it." Wicki tried to smile. "I, uh, I know probably more than I should about you and Jackie, because when he says stuff to you, that's what he's saying, and I can't help but hear."

"What the  _fuck_  did that goddamn Hun bastard say about Jackie?" Donny was ready to see this one through, to break that rock-like face.

"Oh, no, not like that." Wicki shook his head vigorously. "Nah, he liked her, he likes you, I guess, to the extent that he's willing to like any of us. I mean, he likes it when you beat Nazi brains in. I don't really understand how that works with him. Listen, he's really not that bad, he's been an asshole ever since she. . .left." He cleared his throat and looked away from Donny fast. "He thought that she was smart and a killer and worth his time, so she was his friend, she kept his mind all caught up in puzzles and shit. She got him, I guess, and, think about it, how many people in that guy's life have ever made him feel like he was remotely understood? Now he doesn't have that anymore, and he knows how you are about Jackie, so, to keep himself busy and entertained, he takes it out on you."

"What did he say about Jackie just now?"

"Well, there's not a direct translation into English, I think, but something about when you'd start killing whores for not being the Ghost Maker?" Wicki shrugged. "I don't think a whole lotta guys realise what was going on, but nothing gets past him. He's just bored, Donny. That's all."

"Are you tryin' to tell me that he's into  _my_  Jackie?"

"What? No. He doesn't--no, just leave it at that. The biggest possible no. She's a chess piece missing off his board. If you think you're unhappy, imagine being  _that_  nuts and that unhappy at the same time. He might go crazy, kill somebody he shouldn't. I can try to talk to him." Wicki sighed. "I don't like to, though. Jackie kept him relatively cool for a while there. Anyway, like I said, he's bored and he thinks you're the first that'll snap because you loved her so much."

"All that, and you still say he's not that bad?" Donny scoffed, his ears burning. If he lashed out and denied it all, it'd be clear as day.

Wicki flicked a leaf out of his hair as the wind took new direction. He cursed in German. "Stiglitz is helpful, don't forget that. Yeah, he plays games with your head and tries to get under your skin and shit, but that's 'cause he thinks most of us are too stupid for it to be any fun. He's dragged Hirschberg out of the fire more than once, he's covered for you, he'll do it again, too. To tell the truth, there's a lot about him you don't see."

Later that evening when they were all done, Donny approached where Stiglitz was set up and threw a pack of cards down in front of him. "You deal."

Stiglitz raised his eyebrows as though genuinely surprised. "What do you play?"

* * *

 

Two weeks passed and Donny was playing some sort of complicated game that he was pretty sure Stiglitz had invented on his own every damn time the opportunity arose. It was pretty damn fascinating to see, though, because it made Donny realise that Stiglitz really  _was_  just bored all the time. Desperate for something to dull the edge, puzzles, riddles, razor sharp words for anybody that would listen. When he was playing, his movements were more animated and his eyes full of life and, shit, mischief, even. The next time the guy mentioned Jackie to him, it was in English, and not a taunt. He simply asked if he missed her.

"You're not allowed to play a spade after that fuckin' card, are you shittin' me?" Donny's voice rose. "You're makin' this shit up as you go, aren't you?"

"I always make everything up as I go. Do you miss Jackie?" Stiglitz didn't look like he was on a fishing expedition, but Donny wasn't willing to risk that.

"All right, you son of a bitch, we're playing poker. Gimme those goddamn cards."

Stiglitz tilted his head and looked at him with a real smile, like a real person, holding his cards out of reach. "It's sweet, how much you love her."

"I don't know about that." Donny snapped and held out his hand. He was pretty good at sorting when Stiglitz was trying to dick around with him now. "Cards."

"Sure you don't, but I do. You're bright enough to know that I have a lot to say about her, how come you never ask?"

"Because you're not as smart as you think you are, and you don't know as much as you think you do. People can always surprise you, no matter how well you think you know 'em." Donny let his cards fall to the pile below when he realised this topic was not going to go away, even if he got up and left. He'd made himself Stiglitz's new Jackie. What a fuckin' responsibility. "What? What do you want me to ask you?"

Stiglitz shrugged. "What do you want to know?"

"Where the  _fuck_  is she?"

"Africa, I think."

Donny furrowed his brow, his eyes narrowing. Disbelief made his heart plummet. "She told you that?"

Stiglitz shook his head. "No, but there aren't many other places where she'd be particularly useful, with her skills. They wouldn't send her to the Philippines to be useless, she's far too valuable. Her German isn't convincing enough to go deep undercover, so she's likely not in Germany, Austria, or Poland. I'm almost certain she's been to North Africa before, and that she's been sent back because they found something else that they needed her for."

"Africa? They sent her to the fuckin' desert?"

"She can handle herself."

"I believe it, but I never seen it with my own eyes."

"What I love about her is that she can do the necessary thing, even if it's not the pleasant thing." Stiglitz picked up the cards and started to shuffle them. "She can hurt people, injure them quite grievously. It's her job. It's unfortunate she's a spy, though. Spies never want you to know anything real about them."

"Yeah, and I'll never be able to look her up because of that. I don't know her name." Donny saw Stiglitz's hand pause before he started dealing. "What's her name?"

"Someone knows." Stiglitz was downright gleeful at the moment. "One of us. Somebody knows her very, very well."

"Don't brag, like a dick."

"I didn't say that it was me. I only know what I can observe through her actions and behaviour. She shared your feelings, for instance. She had some inkling she would be reassigned. She speaks in a neutral, trained accent, so she could, in fact, be from England, Ireland, Scotland, America, Canada, a great number of places. Things like that. There's one of us, however, that has known her a very long time."

Donny shrugged. "Who?"

"You'll have fun figuring it out, won't you? It'll take your mind off of the gap where she used to fit."

God fucking forbid Stiglitz ever said anything at all useful or helpful.

* * *

 

It grew a little bit easier to bury Jackie every day. Weeks passed, then months, and Donny no longer knew why he didn't just rip up the note she left with the lipstick kiss, or toss it in the fire. It was a part of her that was haunting him, like a ghost, and it would be easier to shove her from his mind if he didn't have this little slip of something to hold on to. He didn't let anyone else see it, definitely not Stiglitz--he'd have a fit that he wasn't important enough to get something, too, like a child. Donny kept it to himself and took it out of his pocket at least once a day. It was folded so many times now that he was concerned it would become damaged. The anger came and went, but he still couldn't bring himself to destroy it.

It was in his pocket now, as he walked on freshly paved cement at an Allied air base near Switzerland. Every now and then, they would be called in to places like this, and it was always a good thing. Lieutenant had work cut out for him, but Donny and the rest of the guys all got to get away from each other and talk to other people who fucking spoke English, and Donny got to be alone. He looked overhead at the night sky and saw the flashing lights of a B-17, on its way somewhere. He hoped it made it.

Tomorrow was going to be the first night of Hanukkah, his second away from his parents and his sisters. He didn't feel like lighting a single candle. It didn't seem right to celebrate with so much else to do, even if he had a few days to knock off. Eventually, he figured there were only so many times he could avoid being hit by one of the Jeeps that zoomed past him in either direction and faced the choice of whether to go to bed or off-base and find some other whore that looked like the girl he was still thinking about.


	6. Chapter 6

Something, or more accurately, some _one_ , was trying to fuck up the last night of sleep Donny was gonna have in a real bed for a while. He resisted it for a few seconds, the yelling and banging that was going on out in the hallway that led to the dormitory-style housing. After such a time had passed, Donny woke up, rolled over onto his back, and tried very hard to make it to the count of ten before going out there and kicking the shit out of Wilhelm Wicki.

He knew it was him because of the depth of the voice and the loud, joyful German that was echoing down the hall. Donny didn't understand much German, still. Stiglitz had taught him a few somewhat useful phrases, but he couldn't make out whatever it was the stupid son of a bitch was on about. Wicki was a fun guy to drink with, up until a point. Past that point, he was just really noisy and made no sense. He started pounding on some of the doors, producing a mixture of German and English syllables that amounted to something like "Come on!"

Donny jumped out of bed and pulled on his pants, swearing under his breath. Stupid bastard was going to wake up the whole fucking base and land himself in the hold. He tripped on his way to the door over the very boots he was trying to find, and, as he pulled them on, he began to pick up on other voices, other  _excited_  voices. Stiglitz came out screaming in German, but stopped abruptly. Donny slammed his door  _open_  and scowled at every single guy in his chain of command.

"What in the asshole titty-fucking hell is the matter with all of you? I don't give a shit if you don't sleep, but you wake me up one more fucking time, I'm gonna pull your tongue out through your dick!"

Sakowitz, Kagan, Utivich, and Ulmer all parted to get out of his way, and Wicki stood at the end with a ridiculous grin and a woman trapped between his arms.

"Dooonnyyyyyy! Look who I found!" Wicki shook Jackie so that her curled hair bounced and then stopped to kiss her forehead. "Come on, backta the bar!"

"I'm sorry, everyone. I was trying to get him to go to bed  _quietly_ , but he is. . .not participating. Wicki, let me go, please."

"Hey, I haven't gotten the clap at all since the last time!" Wicki went on hugging her like she hadn't said anything to him.

No one else said a thing. The guys began to file back into rooms, rooms that weren't even theirs, until it was just her, Wicki, Stiglitz, and Donny.

Stiglitz started to scold Wicki in what sounded like very stern German and grabbed the man by the arm, leading him away. He nodded to Jackie, but Donny knew what that meant. Guy was fucking ecstatic.

Now it was just the two of them, and Donny still wasn't sure if this was real life or a dream. She wore a soft blue dress and held one of those clutches that didn't hold a damn thing against her thighs. Her pumps matched.

"If anyone says anything, I'll take the fall for that. I should have just sent him with someone else," she said.

"Why don't you come here?" Donny swallowed, and he wasn't doing good. The longer he looked at her, the more he thought about all the time he'd spent wishing she was beside him again. His breath was coming to him without any pattern or rhythm at all, and all the anger he'd felt upon waking had vanished. Some of the guys were definitely listening in, but that was their own damn problem. Donny couldn't find a fuck to give, at the moment. He swallowed again and held a hand out for her, crooking his fingers. "Please, Jack."

She smiled, looking like a real, live angel, and walked right into his arms. "Heya, Donny."

"You have no idea how bad you got me," he whispered against her hair. "Jackie, don't go. Don't do it again."

She started rubbing his back and he just closed his eyes to enjoy being touched by her again. He'd be damned if he ever let go of her again. Someone would just have to pry her away. "I think we should talk. Maybe not now, though. We'll be up early."

"All I gotta hear is you're with me, that's it." Donny kept running his hands up and down her arms, her back, kept touching her shoulders and neck. "You don't have to tell me your name or nothin'."

Jackie leaned up and kissed his cheek. "Come on."

"Hold up, baby, where's your stuff? I'll carry it in for you, just let me grab my coat."

"Don't worry about it. My things are all already on our transport. I just got in about two hours ago. I had to go get debriefed and then re-briefed, all that. Lieutenant Raine told me what all you guys have been up to, got me caught up." She closed the door with a soft click and damn, even the way she stepped out of her heels was gorgeous and sexy. She smiled at him again, nerves twinging her lips. "You have no idea how sorry I am."

"It's okay," he breathed, but it was difficult. He was choking on every word, drowning with them. "You're coming with me?"

"Yeah, I'm back."

"For good?"

"You know I don't know that for sure. I'm back, though." She paused a beat. "I missed you so much, everyday."

"Talk to me. You said you thought we should talk. I don't wanna sleep, I just wanna look at you." Donny sat down, knee bent, on the bed, and hoped she would sit in his lap. "Are you tired? Lie down."

"I'll be fine. I owe you as much talking as you want." She didn't sit in his lap, but close, and leaned up against him. "I'm going to be honest with you right now."

His heart pounded. Honesty, from her? "Yeah?"

"My job means everything to me. What I do for my country is immensely important to me, and I believe in it with all my heart. When I began training for my position, I left my boyfriend. We were serious, but my choice was clear. I knew exactly what was the right decision, and I went and never looked back. I've never looked back any time I had to move on. I told you that my job entails, in a way, forming relationships, friendships, with people and eventually having to betray them, and I always found a way to justify it, even when I didn't necessarily want to, but. . .that night, when you found me. . ."

"Hey." Donny brushed tears away from her eyes. "You're my girl. It's okay."

"You don't have to be so chivalrous and selfless, Donny. What I did was terrible. Necessary and required of me, but completely terrible. Be mad at me. Be angry."

"I don't wanna. Not now. I knew what happened, I knew you didn't just up and go because you wanted to break my heart, or nothin'. If you wanna make it up to me, you can just promise you'll come to Boston with me. Meet my Ma." Damn, these were the best kisses. Small, quick, but warm. "I ain't good enough, but I won't stop tryin', Jack."

"Don't talk like that." She laced her fingers through his hair and he moved with her hand. "You're mine. I don't want you to talk like that about anything of mine."

"Goddamn," Donny breathed, hands instantly upon her. "Say that shit again." He felt her lips spread into a smile against his cheek.

"I want you to be mine," she whispered. Her fingers moved hesitantly to his shoulders, where she braced herself and leaned back to look at him. He wondered if anybody ever looked at her quite like this before, because he sure as hell had never looked at anyone like it in his whole life. "I don't want to be told to go anywhere else again."

It seemed as though she was trying to get at something, but most of his blood wasn't headed for his brain, anymore. "What do you want me to do?"

"Nothing. I just wanted you to know. I don't have any idea how long this is going to last, how long I'll be in France. It scares me."

"Well, they ain't takin' you."

He watched her throat move slightly. "Under certain circumstances, I can't be compelled to leave you."

Donny gasped, actually gasped, and yanked her closer with hands that were practically numb. "What? Why didn't you tell me this before? What do you want me to do? How do I do it?"

"Because we'd have to be married, and that's not on the agenda."

"Who fuckin' said?"

"Well, me, Donny. It's not the right reason to do it. Neither of us knows if that's what we want."

"At least I'd know your last name was Donowitz," he said. "Fuck, that's what I want."

"It's what sounds good right now because of where we've found ourselves," she tried to correct him.

"Damn, Jackie, think for a second about shit that would just make you  _happy_ , not about goddamn regs and I don't know what else. You know I love you. You don't know how much, but I know you know I do. People do this all the time, people who know each other less, who ain't really even sure--I went to six weddings in England, Jackie,  _six_. All guys who met a nice girl and wanted that something special to last their whole lives. Wanted to take care of them, and know they'd be taken care of if they died. Shit, if I'd known this, I would've dragged your ass to a chapel in a heartbeat."

Her hands were calming. "I think it's important to see it as an option. But you should also know that, whatever we do, wherever I wind up, I'll do what you said and I'll find you."

"And if they sent you back to fuckin' Africa or to Japan or some shit, I would never know. I would never know, Jack. I would never know if you died. No one would tell me. I'd be left like I was these past few months, and I don't wanna go through that again. You're right, it was bullshit and I was miserable, and half that was because I thought I was never gonna see you again." Donny shook his head. "You're tellin' me this way you don't have to leave, and you don't wanna do it?"

Jackie's shoulders fell. "You're listed on my paperwork now, Donny. You would know if I died."

"That's not fuckin' enough," he stammered. "It's not fuckin' enough to get a telegram with some stranger's name on it and figure out, oh, shit, the woman I love died!"

"Ssh." She looked down at the white sheets, disturbed earlier. "Don't get upset. I love you, too. I'm going to figure all of this out with you. There's a  _lot_  that goes into this, and I don't know exactly how to navigate all of it--"

"Jackie, enough." Donny moved his hands down her body and shook her gently. "My mind's made up, and if I just have to wait for you to make yours up, too, fine, and you may think you know how stubborn I am, but you got no clue. Are you Jewish?"

She stared at him for a long while. Then she swallowed, and she answered a real and personal question for the first time. "No."

"Fuck. Will you lie to my parents about it?"

"Donny," she sighed. "You have to. . .I don't know how to explain this to you without going too far."

"There's no such thing as too far anymore. That's off the goddamn table. If I have to wheedle it out of you until this war ends, you're gonna be my wife, and I'm takin' you home with me, and that's that." He could feel her pulse begin to pound, could see the pure worry swell up in her eyes, and he felt all the more frustrated that he didn't know  _why_ , that he was left helpless against whatever the fuck flood of information she couldn't tell him yet again.

Jackie ducked her head so he couldn't see. "You have to convince my uncle before you will ever have the opportunity to marry me, Donny."

"I don't give a shit!" he cried. Fuck, was that really all? "I don't care, I will! Damn it, Jackie."

She swallowed audibly, then her stomach contracted. When she looked up at him again, she looked positively terrified. "Donny."

"Baby," his voice softened and he pushed her hair out of her face. "Beautiful, I can't stand to see you look so scared. I never seen you scared before. Who's this guy? Why're you so worried? I swear, I won't let anyone hurt you, ever."

This time, she nearly gagged, and she started to cry again. "I've never told anybody this before, Donny. I could lose my job and be sent away."

"No, that's not happening." He shook his head resolutely. "Jackie, don't you get that you're safe with me? Everything you say to me, I keep it in here. I'm not going to fuck up your life."

"That's not what I think," she refuted quickly. "I just. . .He's going to be so angry. . ."

"At  _what_? Why?"

She was shaking, she was so afraid of telling the truth. "It's Aldo," she blurted.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! You can find this and a lot more at my tumblr, warmommy.tumblr.com!


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